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Everyone Doesn’t Sound As Good As You Think — 7 Comments

  1. I’ve noticed this in how some other people talk to me about my Japanese abilities…
    I know for a fact that I’m not that good, maybe level 30 or so, but people are talking about how they want their Japanese to be as good as mine. It’s so weird hearing this because I know how much I struggle through the language — which is a lot. I guess they just don’t see that part, they just see me at my best. They don’t see me spending 5-10 minutes to produce those two measly sentences. They don’t see me struggling through a sentence I’m reading or looking stuff up in a dictionary. They don’t know of all the stuff I hear that I just don’t understand at all.

    In others we tend to notice the positives, not the negatives. When we look at ourselves, it is the exact opposite.

    Anyway, my point is that I can completely see where this comes from. People tend to see something they can’t do as being amazing and then assume that that person is better than they actually are.

  2. Yes! This post touches on exactly how I’ve felt. I avoid watching Japanese vlogs by non-native speakers for this reason. They just make me feel down. And this is quite embarrassing to say, because people share with me Japanese vlogs all the time. In fact, those videos might not even be as great as I think… I’ve just avoided them for so long that it’s become unpleasant to consider watching them. I hope my perspective on this changes one day…

    But in the past, I’ve felt envious over the Japanese of friends I met at a camp I went to, just to find out that years later I would surpass them because we took different paths in studying. I never knew that their Japanese was lower-intermediate at best, because I was only a beginner with some of the benefits of using the immersion method (a beginner of the immersion method and of a classroom setting has different skills).

    Interesting thing, my husband said it might be harder for me to understand an American person’s fast paced Japanese more so than a native Japanese speaker because of that person’s errors, not because they are fluent. Because I’m not fluent enough to hear those errors, I just take it as he or she is fluent. Also, a Japanese speaker is more aware that you are learning Japanese, so they may edit their Japanese so that you’ll understand. While a foreigner will try to use his or her best Japanese, without realizing you might not understand.

  3. I remember sitting in 302 class from a power point presentation from a student that returned from a study abroad. He kept saying his Japanese was terrible and he hardly knew any before going abroad. I did notice that his Japanese was a little funny, but the rest of the class thought his Japanese was amazing and fluent. It really puzzled me and I began to notice this phenomenon.

  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFMVPuwxLto

    lol this video is the exact proof of this:

    「悪口ではなくて、正直な感想を言いますね。 まだこういう動画を作る程、ミラさんの日本語能力は高くないと思っています。 どちらかというと実戦で培われた日本語と思いますので・・・ (動画で言っている赤ちゃんと同じ方法ですね!) 本格的に文法学習や語彙力向上に努めれば、完璧に近づけるはずですっ! 追伸 意図的に使っているかもしれませんが、語尾に「~ね」が多いですね」

      • Does she follow with learning Japanese in Japan is also really hard? There is a strange correlation issue with people learning in Japan vs. outside of Japan, but that topic is for another day.

    • 彼女のことについては全く知らないけれどもYouTubeではかなり人気があるらしいね。こちらで語るImmersionとはちょっと形が違うけど彼女がImmersionを褒めているところは気に入った。

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